“I had him give Finn my card. In case your mate wants someone… neutral to talk to.”
I snarled.
I didn’t want Finn to fucking talk with Aries. I wanted him to talk to me.
“Tsk.” Aries shook his head at me, his blue eyes glinting with mischief. “Is that the way you treat someone who’s trying to fix your problems?”
If only I were sure he was fixing my problems.
“I guess you don’t want to know that Finn agreed to check in every morning and evening, after all.”
Baring my teeth at him, I did my best to keep my composure.
“By the way, your mate has interesting ideas about keeping himself safe.”
I blinked and looked up at the older vampire. “He does?”
Aries’s laugh tinkled through the room. A carefree, bright, and grating-as-fuck sound.
“Oh yeah. He’s quite creative. And very feisty. He even asked me if he should bother acquiring holy water to create his very own brand of vampire pepper spray. Or holy-water spray, I guess.”
Somewhere next to me, Bennie started giggling. “He could definitely turn that into a business for some weirdos.”
Aries nodded. “While yes, I’m sure he could make money off of that idea on the internet, I regrettably had to inform him that holy water doesn’t hurt vampires at all.”
I knew that.
There really wasn’t much that did hurt us outside of sunlight and decapitation. Granted, a stake to the heart was enough to take us out momentarily, but unless the object—stake, knife, pencil, didn’t really matter as long as it was used with enough force—stayed where it was, we’d recover. It was a slow and rather painful recovery, but yeah. Taking off our heads and burning the remains was the way to go.
Aries topped up my glass for the second time, and I obediently drank from it again.
I was really feeling better physically, and I hated it so much.
Where was a fledgling I could rip apart when I needed one?
“I also agreed to meet up with him tomorrow to check in,” he said nonchalantly, like it wasn’t a big deal. But it was. It was enough of a big deal for me to shatter the glass in my hand and jump at…
My phone rang.
Which was surprising in and of itself because the only person who called me was Bennie, and he was currently busy trying to hold me back so I couldn’t effectively threaten Aries. Who, by the way, was just standing there, a decanter full of blood in his hand, cackling like the lunatic I was slowly figuring out he was.
No.
I turned my direction away from Aries, my claws and fangs retreating, as I desperately tried reaching my phone in my pocket in time.
This was Finn’s ringtone.
“Yes? Finn?” I asked as I hit the green button to accept the call. “Are you okay?”
Did he want to talk? Now? It was past eleven.
I furrowed my brow. This was not Finn’s usual time to be out and about, but I could hear footsteps echoing through the line. He was outside. And walking.
“Eric?”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
I heard him huff. “I’m perfectly fine. But let’s talk about you.”
